I have been using Ubuntu for my primary desktop for about 10 years. I have loved using it and had contributed often throughout the years submitting patches directly to Ubuntu. 

The oddness I'm seeing with the ESM PRO has made me look at installing Debian directly and seeing how it compares. 

So far, the Debian system has been phenomenal and the CVE Security warning that was held back by Ubuntu and only available through PRO subscription (I wrote about earlier) is patched on the Debian system. 

So what are some key differences that get the Debian system to act like the Ubuntu one? Very few things, and I'll continue to update this page as I find them. 

  • Ubuntu does not enable login for a root user or create a password for root. Debian does.  I changed the system to not allow direct root login by adding a "!" to the password in /etc/shadow file. 
  • Ubuntu uses sudo for all things whereas Debian does not put the first user in the sudo group. Edit /etc/groups and add yourself to groups sudo, adm, dialout," 
  • Ubuntu add "contrib" to the sources.list Debian does not. To match
    Edit /etc/sources.list and append contrib to the end. E.g. 
    Before:
     
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main non-free-firmware
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main non-free-firmware
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main non-free-firmware
deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main non-free-firmware
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm-updates main non-free-firmware 
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm-updates main non-free-firmware


After:
 

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main non-free-firmware contrib
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main non-free-firmware contrib
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main non-free-firmware contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main non-free-firmware contrib
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm-updates main non-free-firmware contrib
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm-updates main non-free-firmware contrib

Or run

sed -r -i'.BAK' 's/^deb(.*)$/deb\1 contrib/g' /etc/apt/sources.list

 

Why: Without adding common you can't get `zfsutils-linux` which you might want for the back end of LXC containers. 

  • Ubuntu uses netplan (apt install netplan.io ) designed to use with NetworkManager whereas Debian uses regular networking

  • Ubuntu adds /usr/local/sbin and /usr/sbin and Debian only does that for the root user.  Modify your .bashrc as : 

    	PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:"$PATH
  • I actually can't recall if Ubuntu installs vim by default over vi, but the default in Debian is vi. 
  • No tracking to turn off. 

Commands as root

$ su - root
# apt install sudo
# apt install vim
# vi /etc/groups 
    (add regular user to groups adm,sudo,dialout)
# exit

If nftables has replaced iptables but is not installed by default. For nftables install

# apt install nftables
# systemctl enable nftables.service

Test install of nftables

#nft list ruleset

Commands as regular user

 

$ sudo apt install smartmontools
$ vi ~/.bashrc
  (add PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:"$PATH
   then logout and log in again)
$ sudo apt install unattended-upgrades apt-listchanges
$ sudo vi /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades
   (add email for notifications, and if more than just security updates)